


make me feel like I am breathing

by 24Carrots



Category: Schitt's Creek (TV) RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, Thing number 4 rated a light E
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:28:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24533848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/24Carrots/pseuds/24Carrots
Summary: 5 times Dan touches Noah and 1 time Noah touches Dan.
Relationships: Dan Levy/Noah Reid
Comments: 24
Kudos: 74





	make me feel like I am breathing

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES:  
> This is a work of fiction set in an alternate universe where everyone is single and attracted to the relevant people.
> 
> Title from [A Little Death](https://youtu.be/bRfMwoIizTQ) by The Neighbourhood.

**1.**  
He almost doesn’t notice it, because it’s not the first time. It’s not nearly the first time Dan’s fingers have danced along his shoulders, heat and possession disguised as casual attention-getting. Except it is the first time, because all the other times, they’ve been David’s fingers. David’s hands.

As Dan, he doesn’t touch Noah when the cameras turn off, except for very, very recently, when they sank together into Dan’s bed and he touched him everywhere. 

Noah checks to make sure they’re still alone on the sound stage and whispers, “Do that again.”

Dan looks confused until Noah shrugs his shoulders a little under the weight of his hands still resting there. And then Dan smiles and repeats it.

Noah closes his eyes, lets himself just enjoy the familiar pitter-patter of Dan’s fingertips, meant for him this time. He feels the shift from Dan’s fingers to the broad planes of his palms. There’s pressure around the back of his neck and Dan’s lips land soft and light and quick on his. 

“Come over tonight?” His voice and his thumb whisper across Noah’s cheek. When he opens his eyes Dan is still close, pupils wide in the dim lighting behind the café set. 

“Yes,” he breathes. If he had plans, he’s forgotten what they were. 

They hear the PA before they see her, and Dan takes a step back, because this is so fresh and so raw that they haven’t talked about any of this, about ‘oh hello there’ touches and quick kisses full of potential when they’re around each other at work, even when no one else is around.

“Dan, they need you in wardrobe,” she says, her glance hovering just a beat too long on the pair of them.

Dan looks at him like he wants to say more but doesn’t know how, now that they have an audience. 

“Go,” Noah says, waving him off. 

“I’ll text you,” he decides. And with Noah’s nod, he goes. 

**2.**  
The Season Four wrap party is in full swing when Noah feels Dan’s fingers close around his forearm as he pulls him toward the photo booth. “I want pictures before you’re too drunk to participate,” he explains. 

They each have half of the strip from last year because they hadn’t thought to get a second copy. Noah keeps his half in the Moleskin notebook that he uses for lyrics. Those photos, from the end of Season Three, are just the pair of them standing there, both on the edge of sobriety. On that night, Noah was still hoping that he’d get a chance at a first kiss off-camera. A lot has changed.

The photographer nods when she’s ready and Dan startles him by wrapping his arms around him from behind, his chin hooked over his shoulder. The camera flashes. Dan pokes at the soft spot below his ribs so he laughs on the second shot, squeezed by Dan’s arms around the middle. On the third pose, Noah feels Dan’s breath hot on his neck before he presses his lips to the corner of his jaw. He kisses him again just before the fourth shot, this time near his temple, and whispers, “Thank you for this season.”

The strip prints out right away. Dan looks just like Noah thinks of him, that swirl of humor and self-aware charm. From top to bottom on the narrow strip, Noah’s face is a journey. The surprise of being held, the fond annoyance of being poked at, the closed-eyed joy of being kissed, and the sheer delight of being thanked are painted in broad strokes across his face. 

“Hey guys have you seen—Oh, great pictures!” Dustin inserts himself between them, an arm over each of their shoulders.

“I’m here. Let’s do this,” Annie says, coming up behind him. “Aw, look at you guys.”

“Hey are we using props?” Dustin asks as he lets them go. 

“Mmm, nope,” she says, but she hugs him close, squishing their cheeks together as the flash goes off. 

“Can we get another copy,” Noah asks the attendant. He doesn’t want to split them this year.

The second copy lands in the printer tray and Noah hands it to Dan. “Here.”

Dan’s face is soft, a mixture of too many feelings and too many people around to deal with them. Noah doesn’t need to pile on to that with all the things he wants to say right now. For now, he'll keep it simple. “Thanks for this season.”

**3.**  
Dan comes up to him at the end of his first day of shooting for Season Five with that half-nervous half-smile-half-smirk that says he’s found a dark corner nearby for them to disappear to. “Want to see where the magic happens?”

Noah is not expecting that, but he says yes anyway. When it comes to Dan, the answer is always yes.

“Follow me.” As they turn the last corner to the empty hallway outside the production offices, Dan sweeps his fingertips down Noah’s wrist, into the hollow of his palm, all the way along the crease between his middle and ring finger. Noah slows his footsteps to make the walk take longer as Dan’s fingers weave through his.

“Is this okay?” Noah nods and can’t quite hold back the strangled laugh, because it’s almost the same way he asked that question last night after he wrapped his hands around Noah’s, the bars of the headboard growing hot inside his grip, and told him to leave them there. That was a lot less innocent than this, and still Noah feels his heart kicking against his ribs. 

The writers’ room is empty, just the big work table and walls full of scribbled thoughts and location images and character notes. There’s a couch in one corner, next to a big whiteboard with a few different ideas for hiking mishaps scrawled on it in Dan’s handwriting. Noah can imagine Dan in this space, standing there with his Expo marker while he writes and listens with his whole body. 

“Can I look around?” Noah’s voice is hushed; he can’t help it. Magic does happen here, as far as he’s concerned.

“Yes. Look,” Dan says, letting go of his hand. Dan leans against the table and watches Noah scan the wall of cards outlining the major points for the main characters in each episode. 

“There’s a baseball episode?” When Noah looks at Dan, Dan is examining his nail beds with rapt attention. 

“I wanted to do something for you. For everything you’ve—you’ve done. For the show.” 

“Oh.”

Dan looks up and adjusts his glasses, sliding them up his nose so his eyes are perfectly framed when he adds, “And for me.”

Noah wants to hug him, hold him, kiss him. Maybe tell him his own set of soft, careful confessions. He doesn’t. They’re in Dan’s sacred space. He isn’t sure what the rules are. So. “Can I bring my own sunflower seeds?”

Dan’s face lights up, like he knows this is Noah handling him carefully. It helps. He looks a little less like he might shatter. “We can just make sure we have them on hand.” 

“I want to bring my own so they're the right kind. Plus the bag will be kind of worn in from my pocket. Authenticity.”

His grin breaks open just a little more at that. “Okay.” Dan takes a deep breath and looks around the room at the various notes and impulses that will turn into their show. “I think Patrick needs to be not so perfect this season. Are you okay with that?”

“Uh oh,” Noah says, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. “Art imitating life?”

“Hm. Not like that.” Noah feels his shoulders relax a little. "I just think…it's good. To show that David doesn't love him because he's perfect."

Noah points to a card at the bottom of the baseball episode column that says, _Patrick gets overly competitive._

Dan laughs and tugs on his belt loop so he’ll come closer, his finger smoothing Noah’s eyebrow, which is raised in suspicion. “I'm not saying I didn't draw inspiration from certain events,” he grants.

“And when will I see the script for this baseball episode?”

“Probably around the time you see the script for the Cabaret episode.”

“The cabaret episode? Like the town puts on a cabaret?” Dan shakes his head but stands up and wraps his arms around Noah’s shoulders so they can sway a little. “Like the musical. With choreography. And lifts. And hip thrusts.” He says the last part low into Noah’s ear with a little nip of his earlobe. It almost distracts him from ‘choreography.’

“Will you also be doing this choreography?”

“Oh we don’t want to see me attempt choreography.” He can feel Dan's hands moving through the air behind his head while he speaks, his forearms flexing against Noah's shoulders.

“Are you sure we want to see _me_ attempt choreography?”

Dan makes a show of considering the question, lips pursed. “Mmhmm. Yep. _Very_ sure.”

There’s a silence that stretches a little too long for comfort, heavy with sentences formed and discarded. Dan takes a deep breath, his ribs rising and falling under Noah’s hands. “I think it’s me. Who’s been less than perfect.”

“What?” Noah says, pulling away enough so he can really look at him. “You haven’t—You’ve been great.”

“I kind of disappeared on you over the winter.”

“You were in L.A.”

“No. I know.” Noah wants to reassure him, but he feels his guard coming up too. Like maybe Dan is about to make a confession. That he’s been…Noah doesn’t even know. Nothing he can think of sounds remotely possible.

“Dan…”

“I missed you. I booked a flight just to see you for a weekend and then canceled it. I second-guessed myself.” Dan blinks a few times and clears his throat. “Usually when I leave, people lose interest.”

"I didn't lose interest." It’s embarrassingly easy to play Patrick sometimes, knowing that Dan has more experience with what it’s like to be David who’s been shattered by love than David who believes he deserves love in all its forms. 

“You didn't," he agrees. "I keep trying not to ask if you’re all in here. And that’s not…typically something I need to know. In relationships. But I think I need to know it.” Noah hears what he’s not saying, about how tangled up all of this is, onscreen and offscreen, friendships and relationships, closeness and distance. 

“Daniel, I’m all in.”

He looks so happy to hear it, and still frustrated that needed to know. “Okay.”

Noah searches his face. They need to talk about this more. A lot more. But Dan barely got through that much of it. So. “You bought a plane ticket?”

“Yeah. Non-refundable. Lost four hundred dollars.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I know.” Dan huffs a laugh at himself as he pulls Noah back in. They go back to swaying to the silence.

Noah breathes in the faint scent of cedar from his hair styling product. He’s not sure why Dan wanted to come here for this, to this room specifically. But it feels specific. This is probably a safe space for him, four walls where he can write out ten terrible ideas for hiking mishaps (because seriously, stepping on a twig?) and feel confident that he’ll find the right answer.

Dan squeezes him before letting him go. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah. You know, I’m really glad I got to see this,” Noah says before he steps back. “Thank you.”

Dan looks startled but pleased, uttering a quiet, “You’re welcome.” 

There’s a cleaning crew in the hall when they leave. Dan reaches for his hand again, nodding at the cleaners when they pass. As they get to the end of the hall, Dan leans over and whispers in Noah’s ear. “I’m all in, too.” 

**4.**  
Noah pulls away reluctantly when Sal and Amy let themselves in, lips still tingling from Dan’s stubble, hands suddenly cool when they vacate the space between Dan’s wool sweater and his skin. 

“Did you get my text about wine?” Dan asks them. “I just ran out of time.”

“Sure you did, babe,” Sal says knowingly, kissing Dan’s cheek and winking at Noah over his shoulder. Noah feels the red creep up his neck and over his face. Everyone coming to pizza night knows what they are to each other. Sometimes Noah feels like he’s the only one still in the dark. Like even if he could hold this thing that’s happening with Dan and understand the shape of it, he couldn’t begin to describe it to himself, let alone someone else.

“I’m going to preheat the oven,” Noah says as Dan greets Amy and takes the wine. 

For the first half of the night, Noah keeps himself busy with Dan in the kitchen, feeling a little weird and a little great putting out toppings and helping people locate extra serving utensils like he’s hosting too. Dan finds ways to touch him as they work: a squeeze of a hip to let him know he’s passing behind, a little scratch along the crease of his elbow just to say hi, a shoulder bump to indicate the laughter is not entirely appreciated when Andrew tells an embarrassing story about Dan from film school.

They talk and laugh and drink wine while they cook, and then gather around the table and eat. This is far from Noah's first pizza night; they have a familiar rhythm, and Noah’s glad to see that hasn’t changed, even if their relationship has. Nights like this helped them find their way past David and Patrick, before either of them said or did anything about it.

“Yours looks good,” Dan says, stealing a bite. He grins at Noah and then pauses, doing that head tilt he does when something draws out a particular kind of fondness. “You have hot honey on your jaw.”

Before Noah can fish his napkin from his lap, Dan’s hand settles on Noah’s thigh as he kisses the edge of his cheek, his tongue flicking at the sticky spot. 

“Did you get it?” Noah asks, closing his hand over Dan’s on his leg before he can take it back. 

“I think so,” he says. “I’ll double check later.”

Dan finishes his pizza one-handed, the fingers of his other hand tracking back and forth along Noah’s inseam. 

Noah washes the pizza pan and the peel while everyone else clears the table and loads the dishwasher. Noah is the last one into the living room, and all the seats are full, so he sits next to Dan’s feet and leans his shoulder against his leg. 

Dan pulls just enough on the short hairs at the crown to tip Noah’s head back. “I can find another chair for you.” 

“Mm, this is good for me,” Noah says, leaning into Dan’s touch.

“Okay.” 

Dan’s friends stay for another hour or so. Once the door closes on the last of them, Noah goes into the kitchen to wash the glasses from after-dinner drinks. Dan used to object to Noah’s help with the dishes. He doesn’t anymore. 

He does put a hand on his arm to stop him though. “This can wait,” Dan says. So it does.

They don’t bother taking each others’ clothes off much anymore. Noah would rather remove his clothes in a hurry so he can sit back on the sheets and watch Dan’s more careful disrobing. Sometimes Dan makes a show of it, especially when he wants Noah hard and desperate right away. 

He wants something different tonight. He stands by Noah’s side of the bed and reaches out to cup his hand around his ankle in a gentle squeeze.

“Can I take my time with you?” 

“Y-yes.” It comes out raw, Noah's voice dried up. 

Dan runs his hand, palm flat, up Noah’s shin and over his knee and across his thigh until he presses into the soft skin above his hip, pushing Noah so he lies back. It’s meditative and soothing at first, but the longer it goes on the more Noah needs, the more he wants. He wants more pressure and more contact in more places. Dan follows the path with his mouth, which only serves to ramp up the tingling along Noah’s legs and arms until his whole body is shivering just a little with the mix of heat and want. 

Dan is so tactile all the time, but not like he is when they’re alone. It’s like the jittering brushes of his fingertips are the extent to which he can bear to hold back from all the ways his hands need to touch Noah. Dan is soaking him up through every point of contact, like every nudge and squeeze and stolen kiss tonight has left him craving more. 

Dan knows, now, the difference between a cold shiver and a hot one, so he doesn’t rush to ease Noah’s trembling skin. Dan joins him in the bed and keeps going, gentle palms and soft lips contrasting with the sharper edges of his teeth and nails. He doesn’t stop at the usual places. He gets lost along ridges and in valleys he’s only given cursory time to exploring before. 

“Fuck. There,” Noah gasps as Dan’s fingers ghost along the line of his shoulder blade. Dan covers the spot with his mouth and sucks hard before soothing it with his tongue. “ _Daniel._ ” Noah doesn’t know what he hopes will happen by saying his name, except that he’s quivering from the effort it’s taking to let Dan do this so slowly, so methodically, and that he’s very close to taking matters into his own hands. 

“Soon.” Dan kisses him like he has no plans to stop and Noah doesn’t want him to stop but he also wants, needs, him to touch his cock with his hand or his tongue or something. Noah starts pressing his hips up into Dan, whining into his mouth until Dan’s laughing at him. “I said soon.”

“I said now.”

“You said ‘Daniel.’ You know better.” 

“Daniel,” Noah says again, dragging him up off of his chest so he can look at him.

“Soon,” Dan repeats, grinning and turning to nip at his arm. “I promise.”

Noah laughs because he has to, because he’s never wanted someone like this, never come apart like this just because someone wants to lay their hands on him like the very act of it sustains them. He wipes at the laughter in his eyes and scissors his fingers into Dan’s hair and says, “Very soon,” with a little tug, like he’s going to hold him to it. 

Dan makes good on his promise, probably. It feels like hours but it can’t be more than a minute or two before his tongue trails through the leaking precome and across the slit of his cock, until he feels the glorious heat of Dan’s mouth surround him. 

Dan’s hands don’t stop moving. They press into Noah’s skin on the way up his stomach and drag against it on the way down. Between his hands and his mouth, Dan keeps Noah hovering there, like he’s at the top of a roller coaster, at the convergence of floating and falling. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, doesn’t know what he’s doing until he’s coming. Even after he's spent, Dan keeps his hand on his hip, the tip of his thumb rubbing little circles around the bone while he kisses the skin he marked earlier, kisses his neck, his shoulders, his lips. 

“Fuck,” Dan says on a sigh. 

“Fuck,” Noah agrees. 

“Do you have to go home tonight?” Dan asks, turning over to his side but keeping hold of Noah’s hand, rolling each knuckle between his thumb and forefinger. 

“I think the car is supposed to pick me up at my place at five to head up to Rattlesnake Point. Same as you.” Noah says.

“I can call someone.”

“Are you…is that okay?” Noah is surprised. They don’t ride together ever, but especially not at five in the morning. 

Dan turns his head so they’re looking at each other and kisses the tip of his nose. He shrugs. “I want you to stay. And if you want to stay…?”

“I want to stay.” Fuck does he want to stay. 

“Then stay. I’ll make a call.”

**5.**  
It’s a perfect day for a ball game. The Jays are in the lead. The sun is bright and warm, cutting through the fall air. And they have incredible seats, just three rows behind home plate. 

“You know I was at Game Six of the ‘93 World Series,” Eugene says, tilting forward so he can see Noah around Dan sitting between them. Noah’s hands pause where he’s rubbing sunscreen blindly into the back of his neck.

“Really? You were there for the win?” He can’t believe they haven’t talked about this before, but then again, hanging out with Eugene and Deb outside of work is a brand new thing that they’re trying. 

“Careful, he can recite the play-by-play,” Deb says with a wink at Dan. 

“I sure was. Carter hit a three-run homer to clinch it.”

“That must have been amazing,” Noah says, closing the cap and dabbing the final bit of cream into his cheeks.

“It was. It was.”

Noah adjusts his position in the seat to put the bottle back in his pocket. 

“Did I get it all?” he asks Dan.

“No,” he says with a laugh, spreading out some of the excess below his ear and at the corner of his eye. 

“Thanks.” Dan reaches for Noah’s Jays hat in his lap, putting it on again with a little more pressure on the bill than strictly necessary. 

Dan’s fingers are nimble as they tuck up the curls so they aren’t stuck to his forehead. They’ve grown out since Season Five wrapped last summer. Dan pulls down a little on the brim to adjust the hat again and Noah bats his hand away, catching Eugene’s and Deb’s smiles as they pretend to watch the long walk for the pitching change.

“What? You’re going to get sunburned on the whole right half of your face wearing it crooked,” he says. 

“Hence the sunscreen.”

Dan scowls performatively, or as much as he can when his eyes are smiling. 

The new pitcher has nothing on Reese McGuire, who hits his first big league home run. Noah stands up and high-fives Eugene over Dan’s head. 

When he sits back down, Noah hazards a glance at Dan, who has a lip caught between his teeth like he’s trying not to say something. 

“What?” Noah asks, a laugh bubbling up. 

“You’re having a good day,” Dan says. 

“So are you,” he fires back.

Dan doesn’t deny it.

**+1.**  
Shooting Season Six has been hard. Final days on certain sets, final wardrobe fittings, every minute bringing them closer to the end. The table reads are the hardest though, especially for Dan. Something about reading the words, instead of acting them, about having to stare at the finality of it all, gets his lips trembling and his back shaking and his tears falling. 

It isn’t that Noah isn’t sad. He’s sad for Dan, sad for himself. But he sits next to Dan at the table reads, and he loves him, and so it’s just natural, just easy, to be the one to step in and try to get him through it. Dan pushes through the vows with shuddering breaths, trying and failing to keep the tears from falling, and makes the noise that’s so familiar to everyone now, a sound that seems to come simultaneously from his nose and his throat. 

Noah reaches out with a hand on his back, squeezing the base of his neck, rubbing circles he hopes are soothing until they reach the end of the wedding. The final scene isn’t any easier, but there’s less dialogue so Dan can fall apart a little bit in between his lines. Noah has no idea if the weight of his hand helps ease some of the heaviness of this process, but he knows how he feels when Dan touches him. Safe. Loved. Closely held. He hopes Dan feels some of that now. 

Noah lingers afterwards until they’re alone in the room. He cradles Dan’s face in his hands and catches the tears with his thumbs. He kisses the wetness from his cheeks, first one and then the other, and then kisses his mouth once and then again.

“Thank you,” Dan says. He lets his hands hang by his side, lets Noah knead into his shoulders and his arms. 

“I would have been mad at myself if I tried to keep all this going but…”

When he doesn’t finish, Noah just kisses him again and finishes the sentence for him. “But that doesn’t make it easier.”

“No. Someone is going to come looking for me,” Dan says, dabbing at his eyes with one of the tissues that lives in his pockets these days.

“Anyone who saw you after that table read is not going to come looking for you any time soon.”

“They’ll come looking for you then.”

“I don’t think so.” This is just how it works now. If Dan disappears, everyone knows Noah is probably with him.

“This is just. It’s like the first thing,” Dan says. “We still have to shoot this. And then wrap. And then air it. Each time I’ll have to say goodbye all over again.”

“Maybe,” Noah says. “You’ll get to start new things, though. And it won’t be goodbye to everything. Not to your friends. And…not to me.”

Dan looks at him, a smile fighting it’s way across his face, and nods. “Not to you.”

Noah puts his arms around him and squeezes like a promise. “Not to me.”


End file.
